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The
present emphasis on tradition, techniques, and speculation, should be
reduced in favour of making astrologers more aware of what happens
during a chart reading. Astrologers should not be deceived by the
apparent success of their experiences. Such success is due not to any
inherent truth in astrology but to their strategies and tricks of the
trade, or what scientific researchers would call artifacts. We should
avoid training astrologers who become entrapped by bad habits.

Preface

This
work is about astrological consultation and tricks of the trade. For
you, astrology may now lose its magic. But astrological consultation is
more a massage of the client’s ego than a message from the stars. Tricks
of the trade are needed to keep the client happy.

There
are three parts - the underlying astronomy, astrology as knowledge, and
the consultation itself - with a postscript on teaching. The text is
addressed to astrologers and students of astrology. Ten cartoons drawn
by Larissa Halbronn to my captions illustrate the key issues.

1Client : I have a life without meaning.
I need a model I can identify with.

Astrologer : I have a model that does not correspond to anything. I need the experience of life to give it meaning.

1. The underlying astronomy

Astrology
as divination could have developed without the stars. But as an
organised “speech encyclopedia” it had to have an organised structure
based on astronomy, which continues today. But what men say does not
have a source in the stars. Astrology merely imposes a cosmic dimension
on what is happening. An astrological speech introduces the stars via
the birth chart into an environment in which they are normally absent.

The birth chart is both your badge of
authority and a necessary component of astrological speech. Today this
trick of the trade is calculated by computer, which avoids your becoming
too emotional about it. It also makes you look erudite in a field that
is not strictly astrological. The jargon, the cabalistic signs on paper,
its actual validity, none of these matter provided the client is led to
believe that the service you provide depends on the care you have taken
in preparing his birth chart.

If necessary you must of course display
your knowledge of astronomy, even though this is mere rhetoric, for you
are not concerned with astronomy as a science, only with astronomy as
something to distinguish you from the fortune-teller. What matters is
your public image, what the client perceives. Without astronomy, the
astrologer is naked. You are purveying a reassuring well-regulated
universe whose truth is good or bad to hear, a parallel world that your
client wants to be truer than the real world.

An
important part of the trick is your attitude to astrology. You must
understand that astrology is a means of communication, not a source of
knowledge. The chart tells you only that your client shows an interest
in astrology and is open to any speech that pretends to be based on
astrology. So the important thing is not your ability to read charts but
your ability to exploit this interest. You must understand why people
want to believe that such an irrational tool can allow a certain psychic
intimacy. Your aim is to be trusted by your client as an astrologer. As
we explain below, there are many more tricks for achieving this.

2I have spent 3 hours on this chart. I know this person as if I had known her forever.

Who cares if what he says is true or not just love the way he talks about me.
Such intimacy ! I could almost believe it !

The need for precision

Nowadays
the computer has made astrology calculations accessible even to those
unable to add up a grocery list. This precision is a valuable trick. It
provides a focus to distract the client from more serious deficiencies.
It is a little powder around the eyes necessary to maintain credibility.

Another trick is to discuss the
precision of time, the nature of time zones, and so on, in front of your
client so that he smells confidence in your abilities. For example you
need to point out that although France for one century had only one time
zone except during the Occupation, the hour in Strasbourg in the east
is not the same as the hour in Brest in the west. The task of finding
the “true” hour hidden under time zones, daylight savings, and other
compromises is highly symbolic for the client, who sees this as further
reinforcement of your abilities. Of course the more books you can
consult the better for your image.

Customer
satisfaction is further improved by your finally managing to complete
his cosmic portrait. Even though it is not yet interpreted, the fact
that it is now known is already a moment of philosophical significance
and a great psychic relief. It prompts the client to see you as an
all-knowing astrologer even if you have no skills.

The freedom to manoeuvre

Until
now, the trick has been to emphasise precision. You now tackle the
question of combining the various factors. You stress that there are
many factors to choose from and many ways they can be combined, so the
reading of a topic can vary from one astrologer to another, and also,
for the same topic, from one client to another. The tricks here are
numerous.

For example you can make it known that
house position is not as simple as sign position. Not only are there
differences between house systems, it is generally allowed that a house
influence can extend beyond its cusp. Against this sudden imprecision
you can mention that aspects are not a concept invented by astrologers.
They can be found during centuries in the treatises of astronomy, where
they make it possible to locate one star compared to another. And so on.

Your
freedom to manoeuvre allows you to configure the topic to your
advantage without letting the client know, because you have the
privilege of “forgetting” to interpret any particular factor. This trick
is especially valuable. It is normal to use it constantly.

3Please sir, just tell me, which astrologer is suitable for me ?

Her question is OK. But which method should I use to answer it ?
(He can use stars, clairvoyance, tarot, I Ching, dice, hands…)

2. Astrology as knowledge

Here we enter the scientific field where our message is addressed to astrologers who wish to avoid mystical interpretations.

Clients want to know what parts of
astrology are reliable. Some astrologers believe this cannot be known
because astrology cannot pass systematic examination. Some even think it
necessary to inform their clients of this. We disagree. We think you
should behave as if you had extraordinary knowledge along with your
astronomical and mathematical luggage.

The trick here is to use whatever
reliable knowledge you have, supplanted by the panoply of astrology.
Here a planetary typology is useful because it looks rigorous and
scientific, and need not be based on the birth chart. You merely
identify the planet that best matches the client.

For example, if you reformulate the
findings of Michel Gauquelin, you can allocate Saturn to the organiser,
Moon to the artist, Jupiter to the leader, and Mars to the controller.
Or you can simply rely on current language, where Mars people are
martial, Jupiter people are jovial, and so on. Or you can match planets
to age, where faster planets are the first part of life, and slower
planets the second.

This
matching of planets to what is already known is an infinitely better
trick than using signs, which have the defect of not satisfying tests of
validity. Better to use something that cannot fail than use something
devoid of any utility except that your client knows about it. It is also
better to present as specific for your client that which applies to
everybody, since this will spare his ego.

4With your Mars retrograde in Gemini it is normal for you to have problems in communication.

I don’t understand a word but it seems very exact.

Signs and houses

Signs
and planets are well known to the cultivated layman, but houses make
sense only to the initiate. For example why should the 8th house of
death be above the horizon ? Nevertheless houses are an indispensable
trick because they allow a whole range of activities to be mentioned
when no particular question is asked, thus reinforcing your claim to
extraordinary knowledge.

Despite
what we said above, the client often requires you to say more about
signs. But once again this can be done without approaching the birth
chart. Thus the sign can be seen as the need for membership, not for
individuality, which is the birth chart itself. That is to say, as a
model to be followed rather than a reality to be explored. In astrology
you have to be pragmatic.

The act to expect

Astrology
as we conceive it must evacuate a great part of its traditional
postulates. This means that you should not explain your working methods
because your model may then seem too general and too simple. Your claim
to extraordinary knowledge will be eroded.

We must always distinguish between
nature and nurture. To us the birth chart cannot be a viable scientific
reference even if it remains an excellent focus for conversation.
Nevertheless you will locate your client within the cosmic framework,
which will require the various indications to be combined so that
individually they disappear, leading to a Harlequin suit, a costume made
up of all the individual colours.

But here we leave the scientist for the
artist, for you have an embarrassment of tricks for mixing the colours
and making them gleam in front of your client. It is a question of
alluring the client with a drop of Bull, a slice of Lion, a pinch of
Capricorn. The cocktail is made ready to drink.

You
must explain to your interlocutor that it is never a case of Lion or
Scorpion with clean characteristics. You must scramble the tracks, note
the contradictions, play the subtle planetary mixtures, and choose
whatever best fits the client. In this way a discreet mixing will enable
you to avoid the reproach of uniformity and generality.

5Please drink this little cocktail of planets and zodiac made specially for you, which nobody has tasted before.

This is a nice change from tested mass production. It is good to
absorb something special once a year. But if it has not been tested can
it be trusted ?

3. The astrological consultation

Here
we arrive at the final stage, the intelligent management of astrology.
Our first two parts are frankly not useful enough to provide the
consultation your client awaits, even though they contain the tricks
needed to confer a certain legitimacy on your actions. What matters now
is your ability to engage personally with your client while preserving
your horoscopic frontage. You have to avoid appearing too general and
not specific enough, yet you want to focus on overall truth rather than
individual truth since it is much easier and safer.

The
astrologer is not a soothsayer even if perceived to be one by the
client regardless of what you say. So it is at the same time necessary
to be and not to be. You need to be an actor who acts in accordance with
the popular image of the astrological profession, one that promotes
divination, while strenuously avoiding it. A true dilemma !

6I am using this lady to test my new theory of Jupiter transits.

What I like about astrology is that it never changes over the centuries.

Astrology as language

Of
course you have to learn a certain astrological language, but only as a
foreign language is learned. It is not itself truth, only a means to be
better heard by your client, a means of saying the same things
differently for better or worse. To release yourself from a certain
intellectual terrorism, you have to speak astrology but not think
astrology.

You have to say more than can be seen
in the birth chart, but in such a way that the customer has the feeling
of being in good hands, as when calling a client martial or jovial, even
when this does not correspond to anything in the birth chart. You must
deform the astrological language and make it serve his impressions, so
it is merely a way of saying things and ceases to be an access to a
transcendental knowledge.

Do
not forget that your client will read into whatever you say as if it
applied only to him. So do not search for specifics but instead try
general philosophies that he can build on. In this way he will know of
what you speak! Do not send your client on a “great adventure” !

7Madam, everything I tell you is in your chart. I invent nothing.

I love people who do not blurt out whatever is on their mind. (She does not realise she is now a prisoner of her chart.)

Profile of the client

You
should learn as much as possible about your client so you need not rely
on astrology to give answers. On one side of the table is the
astrologer who speaks astrology, on the other side is the client who
speaks his problems. What the client wants is not astrology but relief
from his problems. It is an antiseptic, if not dehumanised, situation.

In
short, the client needs protection against astrology. He needs to
explain his request for astrology so that you can deal with it in terms
of psychology. For example some event may have happened to explain his
attraction for astrology, and knowledge of the event may be more helpful
than knowledge of astrology.

Profile of the astrologer

You
are not there to project on to astrology your own problems or to use it
as a means of personal expression. You are the priest of a religion in
need of close supervision. And you need to be credible. Here certain
tricks are at your disposal. First, you must admit to using certain
basic methods, shared with others, before claiming any originality.

Next,
you should not crush your client under a flood of words. Just because
he came to you with a certain aim does not authorise you to go beyond
what was wished or what was imagined, wrongly or rightly. The only thing
that matters is client satisfaction. You are seen as someone with
particular assets that could possibly justify confidence. You are the
interlocutor of the last chance before despairing of living in the
world.

8So madam, this is your portrait when you were born, your life story, before society puts its imprint on you.

Alas, I have changed a lot. I’m not Dorian Gray.

Profile of a consultation

First,
make sure you can be seen to deliver what the client wants. A certain
minimum behaviour is needed to persuade your client that they are
dealing with traditional astrology. So receive your client surrounded by
astrological symbols and complicated documents. Be warm, be smiling,
and do not hurry the preliminaries. If they are well carried out, the
remainder will follow easily.

Remember that the client needs the
strangeness of your astronomy and mathematics and extraterrestrial
links, to agree to listen to you. Just receiving the birth chart can be
more decisive than its interpretation, see Part 1. But the birth chart
cannot tell you about a client. At best, it merely provides a focus that
allows therapy by conversation to proceed, in the same way as the idea
of previous lives might do.

Another trick. The astrologer should
not be as negative as his client. It is vital for you to have a positive
philosophy that will cope with the client instead of leaving it to
astrology. Without imposing morals on your client, you are there to
reconcile him with the world of men, not to reconcile him with the
stars. In fact you should here ignore astrology altogether.

So start by talking about the problems
of living, its loneliness, its uncertainty, and anything else that you
have found to apply generally to clients. Stress that, thanks to
astrology, such problems are well encircled and solvable. Start a
conversation and keep it going until feedback is occurring. That way you
will know in advance what the client wants to know and what the answer
should be. You do not want to be dependant on astrology.

Of course, you avoid giving this
impression, and you avoid giving the impression that you have done it
all before with other clients. Your client needs to feel special. Once
his confidence has been obtained by your general attitude, astrology can
gradually grow blurred, leaving you to focus on the feedback. Soon you
and your client will be closely joined in a dialogue, and astrology can
mostly be ignored except as a convenient means of changing the subject.

In
this way, by excavating the past, your goal is not to prove the
validity of astrology but to locate the traumas that will reinforce his
interest in astrology. The unknowing client will see this as exorcising
his past, leaving him free at last and very satisfied with the
consultation.

9
My astrologer is going to tell me who I am and what is going to happen, which are things I have no idea about.

I hope she understands what I am saying because I certainly don’t.

Postscript : Teaching astrology

What
of those who wish to teach ? The difference between consulting and
teaching is quite distinct. In consulting, the client receives
information in a more or less passive way, and there is generally only
one meeting. In teaching, the pupil actively wants to learn and ask
questions, and there are generally many meetings. In the former the
relation is with an astrologer, in the latter with astrology. In both
cases it is advisable to respect a certain appearance. The teacher must
thus have the same luggage as described in Part 1.

Just as the client wants the astrologer
to have extraordinary knowledge, so the pupil expects astrology to
solve the mysteries of Man and Life. But because astrology cannot do
this, it is important to resort to pretence. You pretend that the fit
between chart and person (which can always be found even if they are
unrelated) is remarkable and striking. You pretend that any
interpretative failure is the fault not of the stars but of the
astrologer. Such pretences prove exceedingly positive for the dynamics
of the course.

Astrology is mainly an imaginary
science. It is a pseudo-competence resting on tricks of the trade. To
us, many teachers seem dangerous, irresponsible, and unconscious of what
they convey, because their personal relation with astrology is too
strong. They are a fanatic of astrology. They see reality where there
should be pretence, so they lack antidotes. They should revise their
values and give up their naivety.

The problem is that the majority of
astrologers are unable to hold such views. For twenty years we have
organised conferences devoted to rebalancing their views, but with
little effect. The paradox is that such rebalancing would establish
their detachment and credibility. Had they been trained properly in the
first place they would not have developed such bad habits.

We
plead for a homeopathic low-dose astrology, whereas most astrologers
give their clients and even more their pupils an extreme high dose. We
should avoid training astrologers with bad habits who become trapped by
situations for which they are not prepared. Astrological consultation is
more a massage of the client’s ego by an involved caring astrologer
than an all-knowing message from the stars. What matter is the
astrologer not the astrology.

10Strikes, paralysis !
No mail, no public transport !

It’s all due to Saturn !

Further reading

Alexander C. Rae. Bluff Your Way in Astrology & Fortune Telling.
Revised edition, Ravette Books, West Sussex 1992. The way to instant
erudition without having to know anything. Has “enough details to pass
yourself off as an expert and to allow you to charge extortionate fees
for your readings. ”